Daniel Craig visits CIA headquarters
Daniel Craig visited CIA headquarters in langley, Virginia, as part of the CIA’s attempt to engage with the public and increase understanding of how intelligence work operates in the real world. Craig is currently preparing to shoot the 25th James Bond film, his fifth and apparently final time in the role, and the CIA hosted his visit on June 26 as an adjunct to its recent Reel vs. Real seminar.
In a statement on its website the CIA said: “Craig met with our leadership and workforce, who explained that real-life espionage is a lot more ‘cloak’ and a lot less ‘dagger’ than presented in the entertainment world of spy v spy.” The statement also added: “Craig remarked about the teamwork that goes into the intelligence cycle and how impressed he was with the commitment and dedication of CIA officers.” The agency said its motivation was “to combat misrepresentations and assist in balanced and accurate portrayals” of the intelligence community.
Production on Bond 25 is due to start in December; Danny Boyle will be the director and is writing a script with Trainspotting screenwriter John Hodge. No details of the plot or title have been released, but rumours have suggested the film may be called Shatterhand (after a Blofeld alias used in You Only live Twice) and that Boyle and Hodge will depart from the customary portrayal of female Bond characters to better reflect the #MeToo era.
Rowling provokes an internet storm
JK Rowling has provoked the anger of Scottish nationalists by saying she is “mighty tired” of their “insistence that their nationalism is nothing like the other, nasty kinds, in the face of considerable evidence to the contrary”. Rowling, who lives in Scotland, was responding to a column in the National by lesley Riddoch that said: “Setting the English up as our automatic enemy doesn’t help us walk away from the Union mindset or its relentless pecking order. And yet like a packet of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes scoffed with cold milk late at night — it’s almost irresistible.”
Rowling described Riddoch’s quote as “Crunchy Nut nationalism”, tweeting: “Warning: may contain traces of bigotry.” The Harry Potter author was asked by a Twitter user what made her think that Scottish nationalists are “xenophobic, racist or anti-English”, to which she posted a series of screenshots in response, including one from a user supporting the ethno-nationalist group Siol nan Gaidheal. “When blood and soil ethno-nationalists are marching with your supposedly ‘civic’ marches, your nationalism doesn’t look too different to any other country,” wrote Rowling, who previously campaigned for Scotland to remain part of the UK and donated £1m to the Better Together campaign. “Happy to take your word for it that such people aren’t representative of the entire movement.”
Austrian thriller set to feature Freud
Sigmund Freud is to become a Sherlock-style sleuth in a new Austrian drama backed by Netflix. German-language series Freud will see a young version of the neurologist join forces with a police inspector and a medium to hunt down a serial killer terrorising 19th-century Vienna. Variety reports that the series will be broadcast on Austrian television, with Netflix acquiring the rights for the UK, US, Germany and other international territories. Production for the series is due to begin this autumn.
It is not the first time that television has attempted to turn the “father of psychoanalysis” into a crime-solver. In 2014, X Files writer Frank Spotnitz was lined up to write Freud: The Secret Casebook, a series in which Freud would use his newfound theories to tackle unsolved cases, all while negotiating his tangled personal life. However, the series has not reached the small screen, with its development status unknown. A 2006 novel, The Interpretation of Murder, also features Freud solving a murder case, this time during a visit to New York in 1909.